


Venom and Wormwood

by Vitreous_Humor



Series: Set Fire to Our Bed [7]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Courtly Love, F/M, Gen, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Humor, Hurt feelings, M/M, Manipulation, Romantic Gestures, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), Social Humiliation, Tournaments, Violence, battlefield stripping, kid!crowley, medieval era, unwise bets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-01-31 02:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21438385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vitreous_Humor/pseuds/Vitreous_Humor
Summary: “Look, you don't get it. Let me explain it to you again...”“No, no, I have it now. Two people that want each other cannot be together. Instead of hiding these feelings and letting it all come out in a torrent, they speak these feelings out loud, one chasing after the other, knowing that it will come to nothing.”Crowley shifted uncomfortably. He knew where his brilliant idea had come from, but he had no interest in Aziraphale figuring it out. He wasn't sure he could stand it.***Crowley invents courtly love, makes an unwise bet, and spends a year as the object of one very determined angel's desire.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Michael/Ligur/Eleanor of Aquitaine (Good Omens)
Series: Set Fire to Our Bed [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1490417
Comments: 42
Kudos: 139





	1. Chapter 1

_1169 A.D _

_Duchy of Aquitaine _

Crowley told Hell that he had been drunk when he invented courtly love.

The truth was, he had been drunk, heartbroken, furious, and eager to spread those feelings to whoever was close by. If _he _was stuck trying to gain the attention of an indifferent angel and getting sweet fuck-all in return, why _shouldn't _ it be codified into something pretty and poisonous for people to play with? If _he_ had to knock his damned head against a brick wall trying to prove himself, why shouldn't they?

The truth was that he was coming to realize that he loved an angel who could never love him back, and he sort of hated himself for it. Then he had taken that self-hatred, turned it into an infernal commendation, let the commendation go to his head, and ended up bragging about it to the worse person in the world he could have chosen.

Most of the tavern's inhabitants had cleared out, and the ones that were left found themselves ignoring the back table where two man-shaped, nearly-immortal beings sat, the remnants of a somewhat mediocre capon dinner between them. They'd been talking for some hours, and Aziraphale shook his head dubiously, looking rather adorably confused.

“Crowley, please, explain it to me properly. I'm sure I don't understand it at all.”

Crowley grinned, twirling an eating knife between his fingertips and slouching back in his chair.

“It's damned brilliant, angel, is what it is. Look. All right. So ever since that patriarchy stuff started up a while back, about half the population's gotten shackled up and ordered to cover their hair and to keep their genitals to themselves, right?”

“Women, yes.”

“Mostly, yeah. And it doesn't stop that half from mostly wanting the other half and the other half from mostly wanting them. You still following?”

“Patriarchy was Heaven's idea, you know,” said Aziraphale with a scowl. “Of course I understand it. It's for the betterment of... of...” He trailed off, swallowing a little and looking down into his mug. “Oh, I'm sorry, this mead is rather good, it has slipped my mind for the moment.”

Crowley bit down on a snicker. His absolute favorite Aziraphale moments were the ones where the angel forgot himself. Sometimes for a moment, sometimes for a dozen words, he slipped and there was a rather beautifully bitter and sarcastic bastard under the praises and the hosannas.

“Don't worry, I know what you're trying to say. All right, so on one side, we have yearning, and on the _other_ side we have yearning, and what does that lead to?”

“.... Great unhappiness, disloyalty, battered family relations, and generational trauma?”

These moments really were his favorite. He laughed and rewarded Aziraphale with a warm clap to the shoulder. They were tipsy enough for him to risk that much, at least.

“Yes! Exactly, and I looked at all of that, and thought... how in the world could I improve on it?”

Aziraphale made a face.

“I'm not sure it needs-”

“So courtly love. It's all yearning. No touching, no kissing, no clandestine little trysts in the barn. It's songs and gestures and declarations, performance, angel. It's yearning in the open, right in the face of marriage and the frowning husbands and the laws of the Church and God Herself!”

“But what happens when that yearning breaks the dam, so to speak?” asked Aziraphale with disapproval. He was obviously already imagining frantic groping behind the tapestries and inflamed parts flying everywhere. He had no imagination, and Crowley rushed to enlighten him.

“That's the _brilliant_ thing about this,” he said. “The way your lot sets it up, the dam _does_ break, and then you learn who people really are, right? Whether they're going to forgive and submit, or whether they go off in a fit and kill a rather lot of uninvolved people.”

Aziraphale frowned and was silent. There was nothing for him to say to that.

“Here's the thing, angel. Even if it's a big smash-up, it doesn't last. By the rules of courtly love, however, the dam never breaks. That's the whole point. If it's real love, you just go on yearning forever. If you're just yearning forever, you stay safe...”

_Safe_. That word was one he didn't let himself think too often. He didn't like to think about how much he needed Aziraphale safe, how much he wanted to see what would happen if they really, truly were safe...

Crowley coughed.

“And, ah, of course you keep up all that stuff you weren't talking about, the generational trauma and great unhappiness and all. An enormous victory for my side.”

Aziraphale considered it, picking at the remnants of capon in front of him.

“I see how it works in theory,” he said at last, “but I rather think you have created an engine for good instead of evil.”

Crowley bit down on the instinctive urge to snap at that.

“Have not. I'm a demon. I don't do good.”

“Of course you don't, but you do make mistakes.”

“This isn't one of them,” Crowley insisted. “Look, you don't get it. Let me explain it to you again...”

“No, no, I have it now. Two people that want each other cannot be together. Instead of hiding these feelings and letting it all come out in a torrent, they speak these feelings out loud, one chasing after the other, knowing that it will come to nothing.”

Crowley shifted uncomfortably._ He _knew where his brilliant idea had come from, but he had no interest in Aziraphale figuring it out. He wasn't sure he could stand it.

“Right, you do have it.”

“I do. And what's so terrible about people being honest? What could possibly be evil about love that speaks, love that declares, love that is... offered, if not taken?”

Aziraphale's voice wobbled a little, and Crowley wondered if the angel was a little too drunk to follow after all.

“It keeps the system going, doesn't it?” Crowley said, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice. “Like a great blessed wheel. Your side set the thing to spinning, and you don't even look at the evil it throws up. When that dam breaks, as you put it, everything comes out, and people reveal their real natures, saints or monsters. There are usually more monsters than saints, but believe you me that Hell doesn't at all like missing out on the possibility of grabbing those saints. If the dam never breaks, sure, you get love declared and love offered... but it'll never be accepted. Never's a long time for a human, you know. Time to get corrupted. Time to hit the servants when things don't go your way, time to think about how your spouse really doesn't measure up to the one singing you pretty songs and comparing your eyes to currently aesthetic subjects.”

Crowley snorted, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Humans are silly things. They'll spend their whole lives yearning after something they can't have. Idiots, really.”

Aziraphale scowled, and some alarm bell rang in Crowley's mind, telling him that it might be a good time to back off. Aziraphale always took it so personally when he spoke like that about the humans.

“I think you are wrong,” the angel said stiffly. “Your little invention is going to show people more at their best than their worst.”

“That's you, angel,” Crowley said with a slight smile. “Always hoping for the best. Always so very shocked when it doesn't happen.”

“Sometimes it does,” Aziraphale muttered, and Crowley laughed.

Satan, but Aziraphale could be stubborn sometimes, and there was something nasty squirming in Crowley's chest, something dark and choking. It was never a good idea to nurse poison, but he was a damned snake. Poison was a part of him, his tool to use and to nurture. It would never kill him, only make him wish he were dead, and sometimes he didn't mind that. That was the cheerful thought that prompted what came next.

“You're so sure of my genius blowing up in my face, then? Care to put your money where your too-pretty mouth is?”

“My mouth is of a perfectly average aesthetic quality,” Aziraphale said firmly. “And what are you talking about?”

Crowley traced an aimless pattern on the wooden table between them, drawing it out as he considered. There were some poisons that even he couldn't survive, but oh, he liked the taste of them.

“Oh, I was thinking of something like a bet. If you think it's so good, there should be nothing wrong with an angel engaging in courtly love while he's in Aquitaine, is there?”

“I am an angel,” Aziraphale said with conviction. “I am made of love.”

“Then show it. Let's try it out, just the two of us. That should give us some proof of concept either way, shouldn't it?”

Aziraphale hesitated.

“What kind of bet did you have in mind?” he asked cautiously

“I was thinking we'd put up Eleanor's boy, Richard. Winner takes the future king, loser promises not to go near him.”

Hell had a lot to say about the Plantagenets, and it was mostly_ These crazy bastards spew damage like demons do, what the fuck? _That was to say, they wanted deeply to influence the Plantagenet dynasty, and they were nervous about doing so, but they would spit nails before letting Heaven get a hold of them.

“All right,” he said finally. “We try your brilliant new invention for a year. At the end, we tally the good and the evil. The winner takes Richard. The loser buys drinks for the next hundred years.”

“All right, angel, sly of you sneaking that last part in, but I do like being bought drinks. Shall we get started right away? I'm feeling so pleased with myself for pulling this one off that I'll arrange for the introduction of the Lady Aalis at court before I bop off to find myself some armor-”

He was already thinking ahead to Aziraphale in those lovely tight bliauts that were all the rage, to how he could break out the old Black Knight routine and make him into a chivalrous icon instead of a road-side thug. Aziraphale would have no idea what hit her, not when Crowley started winning her tournaments, begging for her favor...

“Why would you do that?”

Crowley froze, not understanding the question, or perhaps not wanting to understand it.

“I don't care for the French fashion,” said Aziraphale fussily. “Those bliauts, honestly, laced so tightly that... well. It's hardly going to be flattering on me.”

“I think it would be quite fetching, actually,” offered Crowley. “But... er. You know that that means you're meant to be the pursuer, yes? The active one, the hunter. Wait, did you actually understand it? Angel, let me explain again...”

“I do understand,” Aziraphale snapped. “I love you.”

Crowley felt as if the air had been punched out of him. He ached. His eyes went wide and he nearly toppled over his drink before he realized that the angel was only demonstrating his listening ability.

“I tell you, constantly and openly,” Aziraphale continued. “You turn me down while making it clear that it is through no fault of my own, that we would be together if the world were different. You send me away. I come back. Is that correct?”

Crowley shut his mouth and nodded.

“Good. Then I shall give you two weeks to get yourself properly situated at court, and you shall give me two weeks to ensure my armor and sword are in good condition. Then we shall start. Do you agree?”

_No. No I don't. This is a terrible idea even for me. No. I can't. This is the worst idea I've had since I noticed some discontent angels at the proverbial water cooler in Heaven and wandered by to see what was up. _

At the same time, the longing in him for Aziraphale rose up, like a taste for poison, and in the face of that, his self-preservation had absolutely no chance at all.

“Angel, I do.”

*

Crowley was rather proud of Chréstienne de la Corneille. She was French with an alluring accent from some distant exotic land, she preferred the most expensive black dresses, and she wore dark veils and smoked glass lenses to protect her weak eyes. She was a skilled fortuneteller, which made her popular, she was stern rather than kind, and most importantly, her much older husband was off on pilgrimage in the Holy Land, leaving her more or less a free agent in the meantime. A series of letters and a few fabricated memories had gotten her a place at court, and while there were of course there were the usual detractors and gossip, Queen Eleanor and her daughter Marie were quite fond of her, so nothing else mattered.

Crowley nodded at a job well done and slipped his skin for Chréstienne's, tinkering with the body until it felt comfortable.

_Been a while since I was a girl, _she thought absently.

She secured a room of her own in Poitiers, but when Eleanor led everyone to Rouen for the first of the great tournaments, she ended up sharing a room with a rather soppy young lady whose husband was off fighting in Spain. Crowley rather suspected that Lord Cortland's absence had more to do with Spanish wine and Spanish boys than with Spanish heresies, but it certainly wasn't her place to say, so long as the girl kept her longing sighs muffled in her pillow and didn't try to cuddle too much. Crowley was _not _a cuddler.

Rouen that spring felt like a sigh heaved in relief. Louis and Henry had broken off the hostilities for the moment, and maybe, just maybe, civilization could inch forward a tiny bit before they all got back to the dreadfully important business of killing each other. Crowley, who never did her best work during wartime, was pleased, and she was even more pleased when Rouen announced a tournament in honor of Eleanor and Marie's visit. It was past time for the angel to begin; it wasn't given to a lady to do so, and if Crowley were perfectly honest with herself, she was eaten up with curiosity to see how it might go.

The day of the tournament, silk banners snapped in a clear blue sky, the sun shone like a benediction, and the ranks were swollen with men secretly relieved to be playing at war rather than dying in the reality of it. Crowley couldn't say that she understood, but she didn't have to. All she had to do was sit in the sheltered box above the field with her hands folded in her lap, scanning both sides of the assembling melee for a familiar face, a shock of pale hair.

“Oh, Chréstienne, do you have a special favorite in the lists today?” asked Beatrice Cortland, her face so earnest that Crowley wanted to roll her eyes.

Crowley started to answer, but then her gaze set on a familiar device on a- oh Satan's balls, was he using an eleventh century almond shield? He was, complete with a faintly anachronistic device of two spread white wings painted on the plain wood surface. Once she had spotted the shield, there was no mistaking the rest of him, clad in armor at least thirty years out of date, leading a horse that looked like it was ready for the knacker's yard rather than the lists.

“No,” Crowley said firmly. “No special favorites in this lot.”

Even from a distance, she could see that the other knights stood slightly apart from Aziraphale, and she picked angrily at a loose stitch in her dress. What did he expect, showing up like some country knight on a holiday? They weren't living in Arthur's time any longer, when you could win friends and influence people just by killing the right sea serpent. Things were different now, and these modern knights wouldn't be bothered to help some little bumpkin from Swinburne in a prestigious French tournament.

_Really, what is he thinking? _Crowley seethed. _He can't believe that he is making a favorable impression like this._

She wasn't sure why she felt so irritated by the angel's lack of care, and she stuffed the disappointment down without looking at it. Surely she was only frustrated that Aziraphale wasn't taking this seriously, not for any other reason.

The bugle sounded, calling the knights to their positions on either sides of the field. The joust and the single duels were growing in popularity, but the melee, a small and artificial war brought up for the day's entertainment, was still the most important event. From underneath her veil, Crowley could keep an eye on Aziraphale, close to the center of his line, visor lifted so that she could see...

He was looking straight at her.

Crowley's heart beat faster, and she shrank back in her seat, instinct for any demon spied by a principality, but it didn't feel like fear, not then. She hadn't been afraid of Aziraphale for a long time, and she couldn't pick apart what it really was before the bugle sounded again and the melee was joined.

_Joined _was a silly word for what actually happened, which was two lines of armored men riding hell-bent towards each other, lances blunted but with every indication that they would like to kill each other very much. Mostly against her will, Crowley had been in actual battles, and this didn't look too different to her. She recognized the fear rising up from the field mingled with the ambition and the greed, the terrified eyes behind lowered visors, the cunning of the ones who held back from the first and often deadly clash...

She recognized, oh Satan, the figure who broke out slightly ahead of his side and crashed into the enemy like a battering ram. It was a show of brute force and surgical precision; he struck the line right where it was the weakest, and when he didn't break, it broke against him instead.

The crowd roared with approval, and Crowley stared, a blush high on her cheeks when she realized that she had been as fooled as any of them.

Of course Aziraphale fought as if he were immortal; he was. If things got too rough, he could miracle himself straight out, hold back enemies with an invisible shield, cause slips and falls, bad luck that struck like a viper. They _could_ discorporate him, but first they would have to reach him, and angelic miracles were very good at protection and defense.

Crowley relaxed in her chair. She wasn't too proud to admit that a principality at war was a good show, especially when he wasn't aimed at her. Maybe they should have been a little worried when they started getting angels made for war instead of stars or flowers or storms, but those younger ones were still a sight to see. She didn't remember Aziraphale from Heaven, but he must have been stunning when-

She stared, nearly coming out of her seat when some pissant Burgundian got in a lucky hit and sent Aziraphale flailing off the side of his horse. The beast, shabby as it was, was well-trained and planted itself by Aziraphale's side until he could stagger up to his feet, gave him a wall to shelter against as he drew his sword, but there was no clambering back up unless the battle ebbed around him, and Crowley could tell that it wouldn't.

_Lucky hit, _ she thought uneasily. _He won't let that happen again._

And then of course he _did_, when that same Burgundian came up on his side, dancing his gray gelding close enough to slam the edge of his shield into the shoulder of Aziraphale's hauberk, seeking the seam that would let him strike flesh. It struck true and Aziraphale's sword arm dropped, numb from the force of the blow.

Frantically, Crowley waited for the miracle to come, for the man to slip, or for Aziraphale to disappear from the field entirely, but instead the angel staggered, going down on one knee.

The Burgundian leaned in, presumably to demand a surrender or to make sure he was actually down with another blow, but then the edge of Aziraphale's own shield came up straight into the enemy knight's chin, so hard it knocked him backwards off the opposite side of his horse.

Crowley choked back a cry of surprise and relief, and Eleanor clapped her hands once in approval, her eyes sharp.

“Oh very well done,” the queen said. “That one was due a set down...Why, my dear, are you shivering?”

“No, my queen, certainly not,” said Crowley, striving to maintain her cool, but inside she was shrieking.

_No miracles! What the ever-loving fuck, angel, you miracle your damn _blankets_ warm when they're too cold, what the fuck! _

Aziraphale had apparently recovered his sword arm because he stepped over the groaning Burgundian and headed off towards the thickest knot of fighting knights he could find. Crowley lost sight of him, and by the time he surfaced again, she had ripped a fine cambric handkerchief to bits and moved on to Beatrice Cortland's hand, clutching the girl's fingers in absent terror.

“Oh! A little more lightly, Chréstienne! I thought you had no favorite in-”

“I don't,” Crowley said through gritted teeth. “I just hate violence.”

Crowley cringed as Aziraphale bashed a man with a mace to the ground, cracking his shield nearly in half to do so.

“I hate it so much.”

_This would be so much fun if he were doing it properly, _ Crowley thought angrily. _It'd be amazing to see him throwing humans around on the field, tossing them into trees, making them regret ever crossing him..._

But it wouldn't mean anything, she realized belatedly, not by the rules they had agreed to. The point wasn't for him to win a battle. Aziraphale had won plenty of battles, both in Heaven and on Earth. This wasn't about winning. It was about getting her attention, and by Satan and and the Fall, he had gotten it.

“Ow!” yelped Beatrice, and somewhat guiltily, Crowley let go of her hand.

“I just hate it so very much,” she muttered.

By the time the sun set and the bugles called the melee's end, Crowley felt like a wrung-out little rag and Aziraphale was nearly the only one left on the field. She could barely stand to look at him after staring all afternoon, not knowing when he would slip, fall, get unlucky as if he were a damned human and not an principality.

She let out a low breath and realized that the queen was looking at her with a slightly amused expression on her face. Eleanor of Aquitaine was only in her late forties, and Crowley knew that there was a great deal of mischief left in her yet. She sat up self-consciously.

“My queen?”

“I think you have lied to us at least a little, Chréstienne,” said the queen with amusement. “Would you care to lie a little more?”

Crowley couldn't afford to look at the field. She felt a little sick at the thought.

“If your highness would not mind,” Crowley said. “Only I was thinking that one knight has distinguished himself on the field today...”

***

Crowley sat at the queen's side in the hall that night, nibbling at the food in front her dutifully as the awards were presented. No more round tables in this modern age, Aziraphale was seated at one of the lower tables, as hopeless as he ever was when surrounded by people he hadn't known for some four or five hundred years.

He jerked like a fish on the line when Eleanor stood and called his name, and there was no mistaking the red blush on his cheeks when he was told to approach the high table. Crowley smirked; battlefield victory or not, he looked like an unprepared boy called to do a problem at the blackboard.

Aziraphale stared when Eleanor presented him with a wreath of beaten gold laurel leaves, and the crowd cheered. It was no less than he deserved after all, and he blushed so prettily.

The wreath looked surprisingly delicate in Aziraphale's broad hands, and Crowley frowned when the angel didn't take it back to his seat.

_If he's expecting me to crown him..._

She blinked behind her smoked glass lenses as Aziraphale turned towards her, eyes fastened on the ground and face red.

_Say something, angel, _she found herself thinking. _Please. Say _something_._

He didn't. Instead, he placed the golden wreath in front of her at the table and then turned and scurried back to his seat, the crowd roaring with a different kind of approval now.

“Oh,” Crowley said in spite of herself, reaching to touch the wreath as if she could not quite believe it was real. Of course it was. She had seen it among Eleanor's treasures earlier that week. It was just gold, nothing to her. She could make gold out of leaves, sticks, nothing at all.

_It's not gold, it's regard, _ she thought. _It's a favor. It's love, just like all the blows he took on the field._

She picked it up, suddenly protective, and if anyone had tried to take it away from her, she would have bitten them.

Beside her, Eleanor chuckled softly.

“What mischief is this, Chréstienne? Did you tell me to grant him that honor knowing it would come home to you? What a terrible woman you are.”

“I _am_ terrible,” Crowley agreed, staring at the wreath in her hands because otherwise she would be staring at Aziraphale, and regardless of her lenses, her disguise, regardless of _everything_, everyone would know.

This was a mistake, she realized. This would destroy her. There was no victory here, no matter how the tally stood at the end of the year. She was going to lose, and Aziraphale would never think it was anything besides a silly bet.

Eleanor turned to hear a troubadour's song, and Crowley's fingers traced the oval laurel leaves and the delicate wire stems.

“I am terrible, and I am so very fucked,” Crowley whispered, and there was no one to hear her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I'm taking some liberties with the concept of courtly love, the Plantagenets, and probably the medieval era in general.
> 
> *Okay, if you read A History of Unpleasantness, I totally cheated on this chapter. This is basically Chapter 4 of A History of Unpleasantness from Crowley's point of view, and not gonna lie, it was really fun to write! If you do a compare and contrast of this chapter and that one, it becomes pretty clear that Aziraphale and Crowley are not on the same page at ALL.
> 
> *Yeah, this is going to get so messy.
> 
> *Yes, Crowley is vain enough to pout that Aziraphale isn't dressed his best to court her. 
> 
> *Aziraphale's move with the shield is about 400 years early, and he's doing it with a shield that's not meant for it, but dueling shields are a thing! Why have we come up with so many things with which to hurt each other! Thanks, I hate it!


	2. Chapter 2

From Rouen to Liseux to Le Mans and Pontvallain, the tournaments didn't stop and neither did Aziraphale.

By the time queen and court returned to the castle in Poitiers, Crowley was lugging around a large chest filled with prize money, jewelry, a few commemorative plates, several silver goblets, and one little copper plaque from a tiny, rather sad tourney in Pont-aux-Rix. The peacock, won at Angers, did not fit in the chest, though not for want of Crowley trying.

“No, please, stop trying to put it in the chest, it will not fit,” said Beatrice, appalled.

The peacock, sensing an ally, ran straight into Beatrice's arms and hissed at Crowley with an evil the demon grudgingly appreciated.

“Sure I can,” Crowley retorted. “I just need to bend its neck into the right configuration.”

The peacock screamed in anger, and Beatrice turned enormous wounded eyes to Crowley. Honestly, the silly thing could give the angel a run for his money.

“But it is a gift from your knight, a sign of his esteem!”

“For the last time, he's not _my _knight,” Crowley snapped. “He is a stuffy and uptight country mouse who would not know good fashion and courtly style if it bit him in his round little face.”

Beatrice hugged peacock dreamily, making the bird squawk in consternation. Crowley sort of knew how it felt.

“Oh, but is he as bad as all that?” she asked. “He fights so very boldly, even if his armor is a little eccentric, and every prize, he hands over to you.”

“If I want a good fighter who hands over his loot, I'll go join my husband in Jaffa,” Crowley said with a toss of her head. Her husband in Jaffa did not strictly exist, but she was sure that if he did, he would be wearing clothes and armor from this century. Dear Satan, would it kill the angel to wear a shorter tunic, maybe something with some decorative stitching at least? They weren't living in the eleventh century any longer.

“Are we speaking of Sir Aziraphale again?” inquired Eleanor, coming into the common room with her ladies in her wake. “What offense has he committed against you today, Chréstienne?”

“Did he win you another tournament?” asked Marie, her eyes dancing.

“Or perhaps present you with rubies again?” laughed Mathilde.

“There is a special place in Hell for ladies who mock,” Crowley said grimly. (There was. Crowley wasn't sure why her stomach always turned a little when she thought of Marie or Mathilde or Beatrice there. Stupid sin, anyway).

“And another for ladies who do nothing when they have something interesting dropped into their laps,” replied Eleanor serenely, taking her seat by the window. “Really, my dear. You must tell him something sooner or later. Are you just going to let him go on hopefully fighting for you without a word forever?”

“I could,” Crowley said, feeling a little sullen. “_I _never told him I wanted... golden cups, or wreaths or peacocks.”

“Oh, may I have them, then?” asked Marie, and Crowley's head snapped up in irritation.

She was ready to give Marie a piece of her mind before she realized how very neatly she had been baited, and groaning, she buried her face in her hands.

“You're all very cruel today,” Crowley muttered, because that was the kind of things tender young ladies said when they were called out, and not at all because she was feeling overwhelmed and confused and downright _weird_.

It had been a weird few months. Aziraphale fought at every tournament Crowley attended, always the melee and more recently in the single jousts as well. He won without the use of a single miracle, and some of those victories had cost him blood and in one terrible case, Crowley was sure, a broken rib or three. Whatever award or honor he received, he gave it to her, always the same way, always in silence, never meeting her eyes. There had been no message, no word, and Crowley was becoming aware of a restlessness in herself that predicted unpredictable things.

“Oh, Chréstienne,” said Marie, coming to kneel beside her and put her arms around her shoulders. “I am sorry, we are only teasing, and a little jealous.”

“S'pose,” Crowley grumbled, earning herself another hug.

“We shouldn't tease, really,” Mathilde sighed. “I remember how very flustered I was with my first love affair.”

“This _isn't _a-”

“Oh yes it is,” Eleanor said calmly. “And dear one, he _will_ keep on winning you tournaments until you tell him to stop. I know the type very well.”

Then more softly to herself, “As if winning tournaments meant anything.”

She was thinking of Henry, Crowley knew, and the ladies broke into eager chirps of advice to smooth it over. Eleanor despised being sad, hated the dark moods that took her sometimes, and by the time Mathilde was recommending that Chréstienne be delivered to Sir Aziraphale rolled into a carpet, the queen was recovered, a slight smile on her face.

“Well we are in Poitiers now, and you shall have the home field advantage at least. What do you say to meeting with Sir Aziraphale in person? Your room has a splendid window for such things, looking out over the rose garden.”

“Oh we can set out candles,” said Marie eagerly. “You could meet just after dusk!”

“No, not candles, we'll burn down the garden,” said Mathilde, ever practical. “No, you should be dressed for bed, with your lovely hair streaming down...”

“Hold the peacock!” said Beatrice, thrusting the bird forward eagerly. “It'll be so beautiful!”

“When did this become a group effort?” Crowley asked, but she found herself smiling a little.

Love -er, the pantomime of love that she and Aziraphale were engaging in to prove their points- was weird, and frankly, she could use all the help she could get.

\---

So in the end it was sensible Mathilde who went to deliver a message to Sir Aziraphale, and Marie who made sure that the rose garden was at its best, lanterns set along the path to light his way. Beatrice crowned Crowley with white roses, and then for some reason insisted on the peacock being at the window with her.

“He's good luck,” she insisted.

“He's a menace that remembers that I tried to shove him in a chest.” Crowley retorted, but in the end, the peacock came to perch on the window sill, his lovely tail hanging down the ivy-clad wall outside. It probably did look very nice.

Then Eleanor and the ladies gathered in the room directly above Crowley's, the window open just to catch the air, Eleanor assured her mischievously, and she was alone.

_I could stand to do this without the audience, but the point after all is to inspire all manner of wickedness, _Crowley thought. She didn't linger on the fact that it felt nice too, having the backup, and not just because Mathilde said that she was keeping a fireplace poker on her tonight in case the knight got at all handsy.

(“How handsy d'you think he's going to get from a story down?”

“It's your first love affair, so I'll forgive you your innocence.”)

Crowley pulled a chair up to the window and leaned her elbows on the sill, giving the peacock a wide berth. Someone above, probably Marie, had started to strum something soft and soothing on the lute. The moon had risen, the sky was gorgeously clear, and Crowley had only been sitting there for a quarter of an hour when she heard a step on the path below.

It could only be him. Only an angel would have stung the air like a snapped harp string, sending a shiver down her spine. Only for Aziraphale would that shiver, blunted and smoothed by long acquaintance, be a pleasant thing.

“Oh! Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry, goodness...”

Crowley winced at the sound of snapping twigs and tearing cloth.

And only Aziraphale would bumble straight into a rosebush on his way to court one of Eleanor's ladies.

“Stop apologizing to that silly thing, it's spoiled enough!”

The words popped out of her mouth before she could help herself, and she heard a soft chorus of _noooo_'s from the room above.

_You're the reason those roses are as spoiled as they are, you all can hush, _Crowley thought, but then Aziraphale, lightly stickered with thorns and with leaves in his hair, stumbled underneath her window. He looked around in confusion, and Crowley, with a sigh, reached into the chest by her side for the string of pearls he had won her at Chartres. Her aim was good, and the pearls fell neatly around his neck.

“Up here, sir knight.”

He gazed up at her, and the world warmed around his smile. It was as if she was the sun come out on a cold day, or as if she were a ship bringing his fortune to harbor.

It was as if she was someone he loved, and Crowley hissed softly with the pain of it.

_He's made of love, of course he can look like that, _ she told herself harshly. _Don't go believing your own blessed con, for Satan's sake._

“Good evening, lady,” Aziraphale said softly. “You called for me, and I have come.”

“I see that,” she responded. “Here, catch.”

She threw him the bag of rubies, and he fumbled them a little, clutching them to his chest for a moment before taking one out to examine it.

“Pearls and now rubies. What are you trying to tell me?” he asked curiously.

“You don't recognize them, do you?”

“Should I?”

Crowley laughed, covering up a strange little pinch of hurt.

“Of course not. For a knight that wins so often, you must be quite indifferent to your prizes and to the one you offer them to.”

“Oh... oh! These are the prizes I gave to you. Tokens of my affection.”

Aziraphale said it enthusiastically, as if he had remembered something he needed to pick up at the market. Crowley rolled her eyes. What in the world had she been afraid of, anyway?

“You acquired them so easily, sir knight, and I can only assume that you give them away with similar ease and lack of care.”

Aziraphale straightened up, looking confused.

“I... had thought that was the way of things,” he said hesitantly.

Crowley threw the little copper plaque at him, taking a mean little pleasure in it when he yelped.

“To charm me with trinkets like you were seducing an inn girl? Hardly!”

“That's not what I was-”

“What's my name?”

“Crow-”

Aziraphale caught himself himself in time, turning it into a rather credible cough. The startled and guilty look on his face made Crowley want to giggle. He could imagine that the ladies above were likely growing indignant on her behalf.

“You don't know it,” she said with lofty dignity, standing up from her chair. “Of course you don't know it. What did you need a name for when you thought you could buy me with-”

“I have never needed to know your name.”

Crowley, half-turned towards her chamber, froze.

“What?”

“I never have,” Aziraphale insisted. “If... If we had met five thousand years ago, when the earth was new, and you had come to me, with your face, your voice, and your heart, I should never have troubled to learn your name. I would always know you. There was only ever you.”

He hadn't, either, Crowley thought faintly. He hadn't gotten Crowley's name that day on the wall or Crowley his. They had never needed to make proper introductions, because after all, there was only one angel on the eastern gate and only one Serpent of Eden. From somewhere above, Crowley heard a muttered _nice!_

“If you wish to grant me your name, I would be honored in knowing it,” Aziraphale said, his voice soft as if he really was a humble knight in love.

“Say... say please,” Crowley said, stalling with no idea what she was stalling for. Suddenly,this felt as if it were going all too fast. Next he would know her _name, _and then what? Boat rides on the Seine? A little castle in Auxerre, tiny little blond-haired brats? Who knew where it might end?

“Please, lady,”Aziraphale said earnestly, and she felt almost heady with what she might get him to do. If she could make him say_ please, _ could she make him say other things? Do other things? The power between them sloshed like wine in a goblet, close to spilling.

“This is all too fast,” she said abruptly, shaking her head. “You're in the garden, shouting up at me like an Italian gondolier, you're wearing pearls for some reason-”

“You threw them at me!”

“No, entirely too fast. Can't do it. If you were asking me like a civilized man in a civilized tone, meeting me eye to eye, perhaps then, but-”

Crowley had been babbling trying to find something to hang on to, but in the meantime, Aziraphale had found the ivy on the wall. He was _not _a good climber, and she suspected a miracle might have been involved to keep the ivy in place under his weight, but as she stared in shock, his head popped up over the window sill, and he gazed at her with a slight, smug smile on his face.

“Any more arguments?” he asked.

“_Angel,”_ Crowley hissed. “Are you aware that the queen and three of her ladies are in the room straight above us?”

“What does that have to do with love?” the angel asked innocently, and Crowley nearly slapped him straight off the window ledge.

“You are taking my very clever sin machine and turning it into a _farce,” _Crowley said through gritted teeth, and Aziraphale had the grace to look concerned.

“Am I not doing it right?” he asked with a frown. “I won your attention, I came when you called, you are... oh! You are turning me away to make me prove my devotion. Oh, Crowley, I'm dreadfully sorry, I forgot.”

“Yes, that's right,” Crowley said with a strange mixture of relief and disappointment. “I'm sending you away now. Go on. Go. Shoo.”

“If I go so easily, will it show poorly on you?” asked Aziraphale anxiously. “I shouldn't like to think that you will be shamed if I simply trot off whistling.”

“Oh, well, don't _whistle, _for Satan's sake. I... I suppose you could insist a little more.”

Aziraphale made a face.

“Oh, it is so beastly when men insist, though, isn't it? Really, Crowley, I do think you might have found a better-”

“Angel,” Crowley growled, “either insist or I'm going to pretend you did and shove you straight off this wall, and-”

She yelped as Aziraphale's hand shot out and he tangled his hand in her loose hair, knocking her crown of roses loose to pull her forward.

“Like this?” Aziraphale asked. There was something gone feral in his voice, and Crowley's breath caught in her throat.

“_Please,” _Crowley said, forgetting to keep her voice down, and she should have been ashamed of how desperate and wanting she was, but she wasn't.

She didn't have it in her to resist him, there was nothing in her that could, that _ever_ could, and he was _so_ close, and he smelled _so_ very good, and-

And then an iron poker came spearing down from above, the peacock shrieked, and they both stared at feathers exploded in every direction.

“That was a thing that happened,” Crowley observed numbly, and Aziraphale leaned back to look down at the courtyard.

“Crowley, is that...?”

Crowley looked over the window sill, and instead of a skewered peacock, there was a naked man sitting in the middle of a pile of feathers, staring around in confusion and holding a poker.

“_Why?_” asked Aziraphale in bafflement, and Crowley shrugged. The twelfth century was already so blessed weird that this might as well happen.

There was a rush of cries from above, and Aziraphale winced.  
“I'd best be off,” he said. “And, er, I'll take care of the peacock problem, shall I?”

“It'd be damned decent of you,” Crowley said, keeping the sarcasm out of her voice. _She _certainly didn't want to deal with it.

“Of course, my dear,” Aziraphale said, and just when Crowley thought this ordeal was over, he leaned in, not touching Crowley at all, but coming so close that Crowley could feel his breath against her ear.

_Too close, _she thought, panicked, _and not close enough._

“Your name. _Please.”_

“Chréstienne,” she breathed, and she caught a flash of white teeth as Aziraphale threw himself off the window ledge.

There was a flare of wings, likely too fast for any human to catch, and then he was helping the naked man up and hurrying him off into the darkness. They had just made good their escape when Mathilde burst in armed with a small stool, and Marie and Beatrice just behind her, followed at a more dignified pace by Eleanor.

Crowley abruptly realized how desperate she looked, one hand clutching the window sill, her roses gone and her hair falling down around her face.

“And _that,” _she said, her voice shrill even in her own ears, “is what comes of talking to poorly-dressed country knights!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I really hope you all didn't get used to how good Aziraphale looked in Chapter 1. I love a tough war angel, but I love a soft and clumsy angel even more.
> 
> -Okay, so I've got this folder on my computer, and it contains all the Good Omens fanart images that catch my eye. Most of it is just Aziraphale drawn with a really, really round face, which is like, instant dopamine for me. Sometimes, I also save pictures of actors I find sexy or engaging. So I'll be clicking along, and it goes something like cute round angel face, cute round angel face, AUGH CHEESECAKE 1997 MICHAEL SHEEN, cute round angel face, cute round angel face. It's kind of a problem.
> 
> -Love is weird is basically what I have to say about love. It is everything I have ever said about love. 
> 
> -I JUST found out about what screen readers do to asterisks. I'm gonna be going back and editing my old work and changing over to hyphens from now on. Sorry if anyone's been getting my stuff on screen reader!
> 
> -So I did some reading for this one, and trust me, a peacock turning into a dude is like... just the least weird thing in some of these stories.


	3. Chapter 3

Aziraphale won her another tournament at Tours, and Crowley turned away the prize, twenty acres of arable land along the Garonne. It was a shame, because that was land with some serious promise, but it was the principle of the thing.

He tried to give her the prize from Limoges, a brass mirror studded with pearls, via courier, but she sent the mirror back cracked and the courier back drunk (all right, that last was actually Mathilde's fault, who liked them stocky and with a taste for hot wine, but Crowley felt it was rather in the theme of things).

He came to find her at the royal pavilion in Clermont, and she left a bouquet of white roses in her seat for him to find, as well as Beatrice and Mathilde, who had directions to be as _welcoming_ as they cared to be.

She and Marie came back from their convenient walk to find Beatrice and Mathilde drowsy and giggling, both wearing bracelets of silver wire and a gold bracelet set with tiny garnets left for Crowley herself.

“Well?” demanded Crowley. “Did you-?”

Mathilde waved a hand dreamily.

“He does talk so very nicely, doesn't he?” she asked. “So adorably clumsy as the English are. Like he doesn't know what to do with those pretty hands.”

Crowley twitched.

“Oh yes,” giggled Beatrice. “He's so nervous, too. Nearly climbed the tent pole when Mathilde started to sing that song about the knight with the great big lance.”

“You sang him the song about Sir Ectus and the kitty-cat from Navarre?” asked Marie in horror.

“_Oh sir knight, sir knight, went out to fight and very fine shaft had he-” _began Mathilde, and Crowley clapped her hands.

“But what did he _do_?” she demanded, and Mathilde and Beatrice frowned.

“Gave us wine and sweets,” said Beatrice. “It got a little fuzzy after that.”

“Blushed a lot,” said Mathilde. “Kept asking when you would be back, and if there was anything we thought you wanted.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“A very fine shaft, and-”

“Mathilde!”

“Fine, fine, I didn't say that.” Mathilde sat up, pushing her hair back from her warm damp face. “I told him that he needed to listen to you, and that you were on the high-strung side-”

“I am _not_!”

A quick three-way look passed between the other ladies, and Mathilde continued smoothly.

“-and that he had to be constant as the north star. That he had to understand that a lady often may not say things for fear of the powers that rule over her, and that instead she will only show her regard in sideways gestures, in contests, and sometimes, if she has no other way, in her cruelty.”

Crowley was suddenly aware of the pit underneath her feet, that was always underneath her feet. She felt as if she were falling again, and this time there was nothing as nice as a warm bubbly sulfur pit waiting for her.

“And... what did he say to that?”

“He looked sad,” said Beatrice. “Like maybe he wanted to cry a little. And then he got another bottle of wine from somewhere.”

“You know, I actually didn't see him bring that one in,” said Mathilde.

“Oh you know. Englishmen,” Crowley said hurriedly. “Weirdos.”

Marie started to pile the scattered cushions back onto the platform, and automatically, Crowley went to help, her head buzzing.

“Well, what do you think?” asked Marie.”

“I think he has the best wine,” volunteered Mathilde.

“Mmhmm,” said Beatrice. She had only just realized that there was a rather crumpled peacock feather in her hand, and was staring at it in confusion.

“I still don't know,” Crowley said, biting her lower lip. “I mean. What happens from here? Do we go back to the round of tournaments and gold and things? Do I set up a menagerie? He tried to give me a baby rhinoceros last week. What do I _do_ with that?”

To her surprise, Marie took her hand, and Mathilde came to hug her from behind.

“Whatever you want to do,” Marie said gently. “He is not your husband, is he? He does not control you, and you do not owe him anything. You should do whatever you want to do with him.”

Crowley swallowed, because she could recognize her own poison come home to her. This was it, wasn't it, the crux of what she had designed. In their little game, Aziraphale wasn't allowed to take the no, and she wasn't allowed to give him a yes.

“If you are bored with him, that's one thing,” said Mathilde. “But I don't think you are.”

“No,” said Crowley slowly. “No, I am not.”

No. But she could push him. Aziraphale was built for fighting, and if the rumors about God not taking Heaven's calls for the last few thousand years were true, he was used to not getting a real answer. What would happen when he was confronted with something he was absolutely not made for?

“No,” she repeated. “Let's make this interesting...”

“Really,” asked Beatrice, “where _did _this peacock feather come from?”

-

It was Bordeaux, and they had stacked a tournament on top of a fair on top of a holy day, and the town was teeming with people from all over Europe and northern Africa. In the days leading up to the big tourney, none of their contacts could find Aziraphale at all, no matter where they looked or what inns they searched.

“Maybe he's hurt,” Beatrice fretted, tugging her slightly ragged peacock feather through her fingers. “Maybe he's been bitten by some serpent in a well and lies in a sleep like unto death.”

“That serpent got tired of Lourdes ages ago, and has moved on from biting pilgrims,” said Crowley, who should know. “He's probably lost interest, or been called away by his liege lord or something like that.”

All three of the ladies gave her a skeptical look, and she frowned.

“Everyone stop picking on me! Pick on Beatrice instead, she hasn't put down that peacock feather for weeks!”

“I just don't know where it came from!” said Beatrice.

Finally, however, one of Eleanor's spies found Aziraphale shacked up at a tavern in a rather nice part of town, sharing rooms with a knight from Fribourg, and apparently living it up. The spy came back with news of fine incense, mysterious people coming and going at all hours, and of course plenty of rich food being ordered.

Crowley scowled at that, because that wasn't _on, _was it, Aziraphale picking himself up a little boyfriend while they were doing this. It firmed her resolve, and if this was what ended all of it, she wanted to see it ended with a bang and herself left the decided winner.

Eleanor offered her a page send her message, but Crowley declined.

“I have some family locally,” she said. “I can send him a message with my little sister.”

She headed out out after dark, and slipped her skin for that of a skinny ten year old girl in a miniature version of Crowley's own dark dresses. Everything took so much longer on those short little legs, and she was possessed of an urge to jump in every mud puddle she passed, but she made it to the tavern eventually, where she found Aziraphale at table with a stunningly beautiful, stunningly drunk young man.

_Oh come on, who's competing with that? _Crowley thought indignantly, and then the man dropped his blond head on the table with a thump.

“She is so kind, so compassionate,” he moaned in heavily accented French. “What can I do but admire her from afar? My curse...”

“You could send her a message,” said Aziraphale with the air of someone repeating himself for the twentieth time. “Talk to her. Do _something _besides randomly cry in bed. I don't know what. But _something...”_

Crowley snickered to herself, suddenly feeling much better, and with a quick snap, she sent the knight from Fribourg into a deep sleep before hopping up on the bench next to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale got that moment of slight panic he always got when dealing with children, but a second look made him relax.

“Oh, Crowley, thank goodness, I was just getting ready to...”

“Who's Crowley?” asked Crowley innocently. “I'm Clare, Chréstienne's sister. And I have a message for you.”

“Er... of course you are, little one,” said Aziraphale with an unconvincing smile. “Whatever could it be?”

“My sister has told me that you have won her many tournaments, that you have made your name known up and down the length of France and throughout Spain and England as well.”

Aziraphale smiled with a slightly unangelic pride.

“Oh, she has? Does she-”

“She's bored with that now,” Crowley said. “She says she wants to see you lose tomorrow.”

She watched something freeze in Aziraphale. Suddenly it was as if he forgot that humans needed to breathe or make expressions or do any of the thousand and one little things that humans did to signal to each other '_hello, I am a human and I am not an celestial creature that could easily end all life in a thirty mile radius with a thought_.'

It was a reminder that he was an angel, and that while he might have been made of love, and he might have been made to war, to obey and to glory in Her name, he was certainly not made to _lose_.

“You... you must have made some mistake,” he said at last. “Surely she meant-”

“Oh I know what she meant,” said Crowley with all the archness her ten-year-old body could muster. “She wants to see you defeated at every trial you entered. Utterly. Completely.”

Aziraphale took a breath, human again, but unreadable.

“All right,” he said. “Tell her I understand.”

“Good,” Crowley said with a satisfaction that felt like gall on her tongue, because she wasn't tired of it really, was she? She was only tired of things going on as they were, unable to say yes, refusing to say no...

She hopped off the bench, but she yelped a little as Aziraphale scooped her up and set her on his hip as if she were a much smaller child.

“Angel!” she hissed. “Put me down.”

“I can't let a girl as young as you walk alone through the streets this time of night. Come on. I'll give you a ride back to the castle.”

Crowley thought about protesting, but it was rather nice to be carried through the Bordeaux streets instead of having to dodge all the people who might have trampled her. Even the horse, calmed by Aziraphale's angelic presence, only snorted a little at Crowley instead of trying to take a bite out of her.

“Thanks for the lift home,” she said begrudgingly.

“Never a worry, my dear,” Aziraphale replied absently.

The angel's thoughts were obviously somewhere else, and they rode back to the castle in silence. She had him drop her in the gardens, which should have been deserted, but instead Beatrice was there, sitting on a bench and still fiddling with that damned feather.

“Oh, Sir Aziraphale... and this must be Chréstienne's little sister, what a pretty moppet,” Beatrice said, and Crowley took advantage of the rudeness of youth to dodge her and run off towards the castle. Around the rosebush, she paused when she heard Beatrice and Aziraphale speak.

“What a darling, she is just like Chréstienne, isn't she? So shy...”

_No, no, I'm aloof, you silly thing..._

“She is very dear,” said Aziraphale. “But Lady Cortland... I have a message for you.”

“You do?”

He did?

“Yes. Only that... that kindness is remembered. And that sometimes, when someone cannot speak, it does not mean that there is not adoration there. Sometimes... sometimes love is silent.”

The horse's tack jingled as Aziraphale turned to ride away, and with a frown, Crowley returned to her adult human form and made her way back to her own room.

-

The day of the tournament was overcast with just a splatter of rain coming down in the morning. It made Crowley ache a little and long for the warmth of the great southern cities she had once known. If there had been anything else going on, she might have simply stayed in bed, but today she shook out her finest black gown, and after a moment, she tucked the gold and garnet bracelet Aziraphale had left for her into the embroidered bag that hung from her belt.

Everyone was a little distracted that morning as Beatrice's husband had sent another message saying that he wouldn't be home before the end of the year, and that no, she was not welcome to join him in Valencia. Beatrice has held back her tears bravely right up until Mathilde offered her some toasted bread with cheese at breakfast and then it was just a torrent that she had been holding back all summer.

Crowley's shoulder got soaked in tears, Eleanor and Marie went to write a few very cold and angry letters, and Mathilde, less cuddly despite being wholly more physically suited to it than Crowley (Crowley thought resentfully), patted Beatrice's hand and came up with various curses that Beatrice could cast on Lord Cortland.

“There's that good one about grinding up toadstones and putting it in his food...”

“Eh, no good,” Crowley said, shaking her head. “That one's not worked right since the 900s.”

“Or that one with the pissing in his wine.”

“Ineffective after the baptism of Poland.”

“Well, at the very least, you've pissed in his wine.”

“You're not wrong, certainly...”

Between one thing and another, they were late getting up to the royal box, and Crowley had to loan Beatrice a spare veil so she wouldn't be set up above the crowd with red eyes and a swollen nose, still sniffling a little.

There was a commotion going on on the field, where the sword duels had started. There were three cirlcles cleared, with one-on-one combat taking place in each one. They were playing by Gascony rules, where a defeat occurred when a knight fell or was forced out of the chalked ring. There was a combatant getting hauled out of one ring, a duel setting up in the other, and at the center ring was Aziraphale, looking still and calm as a pond while a herald in velvet shouted at him.

That was unusual. Aziraphale could never tolerate being yelled at. It didn't matter if it was a Medina stable hand or a bar maid in Tuscany, being shouted at tended to make him into a mess of apologies and justifications. It turned him red as a tomato, could even bring tears to his eyes. It should have been hilarious watching an principality who had guarded Eden tear up at getting scolded, but it always made Crowley feel ever slightly so murderous.

Today, however, Aziraphale only waited the herald out, his face cold and unimpressed. When the herald paused for breath, he said something Crowley couldn't read, and then herald threw up his hands, stalking away.

“What's this, angel?” she wondered, and she must be slipping, because Beatrice brightened next to her.

“Is that what you call him now, your angel?”

“No, absolutely not,” she said, and Marie smiled.

“Oh, but isn't it perfect, with his device? All that pale hair, and his eyes, he does look like an angel, doesn't he?”

“Why are you looking at his eyes, no, he absolutely doesn't...”

They were distracted by the herald, a rather stormy look on his face, announcing the next bout, Aziraphale versus some bruiser from Toulouse. The other knight towered over Aziraphale, who regarded him with a look of calm amusement.

_He's up to something, _Crowley thought.

Aziraphale and the knight entered the ring, blunted swords drawn. The other knight took a few menacing practice swings; Aziraphale smiled just with his teeth and not at all with his eyes.

_Satan, what a demon he might have made, _Crowley found herself thinking Then the whistle blew and the Toulouse knight lunged at Aziraphale with a roar.

Crowley refused to be impressed by Aziraphale's speed, because it was nothing compared to Crowley herself, but Aziraphale was still fast. He sidestepped the knight's lunge and when it looked like the man would stumble out of the circle under his own momentum, grabbed at the back of his tabard, and tugged him back as the crowed broke into an uncertain clamor.

Crowley, tuned to the various humors that could predict a mob, stirred uneasily. Aziraphale had become quite the crowd favorite, but right now, it sounded like they weren't so pleased with him. A loss wouldn't turn them like this, she was sure; something must have happened in his previous bout, which happened before the court ladies arrived.

The knight took another few passes as Aziraphale side-stepped or parried him with a look of disdain on his face. He was toying with the man, and taking the odd scrape or bruise to do so, but that wasn't too unusual...

Finally, though, it seemed as if Aziraphale was done messing about. He suddenly stepped right into the oncoming knight's charge and stopped him with two savage blows to the chest and one hard pommel blow to the belly. The Toulouse knight wavered, and as he started to fall, Aziraphale stepped easily out of the ring.

As Crowley had directed, he had lost, but there was something so incredibly insulting about the way he had done it that Crowley gritted her teeth. It was a humiliation to the knight on the ground, it was an insult to the rules of engagement, and she didn't even know what it meant to her.

The crowd growled menacingly, but Aziraphale ignored them, instead turning to the royal box. He met her eyes, bowed deeply to her, and walked off the field.

“What in the _world?” _Eleanor murmured, and she might well ask. A loss could cost a knight more than his pride. The winner could demand all manner of forfeits, from his land to his wealth, to his horse and armor. What Aziraphale was doing was madness for a knight. Of course, it wouldn't cost an angel anything he couldn't stand to lose, and Crowley seethed.

“Chréstienne?” asked Marie tentatively. “Did you...?”

Crowley rose abruptly, her cheeks flaming.

No, he did _not_ get to turn her order into this joke. He did not get to pretend to the humility of a lovesick knight and then do _that. _He could play or he could refuse, but he didn't get to walk off the field like he was something righteous and pure, above the humiliation of love and the weight of it on his shoulders.

He didn't.

“Chréstienne, where are you _going_?” asked Mathilde.

“To get my brother,” she snarled.

-

The number of fast miracles it took to create Clare du Bellay was enough that Crowley had to call downstairs, and even then she had to do some quick talking.

“Just send them up, and watch what I do with them,” she snapped. “_Then _talk to me about formal requests and proper respect for the process.”

She'd gotten what she wanted, and when he stepped out onto the field two hours later, Clare du Bellay had always been on the roll of arm_s,_ had friends who knew him from Saintes and visited his home near the Dordogne River. He had fought in Sicily and in Castile, he was a knight of some renown, and of course his armor, sword and shield were of an elegant modern make, though black as night, just like his beloved sister's dresses.

And of course, he was due to meet Aziraphale in the joust at dusk.

Until then, there was the melee, which Aziraphale hadn't registered for, where Crowley grimly took some of his fury out on the men who rode against him. _He_ didn't mind using miracles, and he came off the field with his side cautiously slapping his shoulder and congratulating him on his skills. He smiled, took their praise, and thought to what would come next.

If Aziraphale wanted his pride more than he wanted Crowley's affections (pretended affections. This wasn't real, none of this was real, but it was the _point_ of the thing), then he could damn well say he was done, but he wasn't walking away from this with his pretty hide totally intact. Crowley was going to see him take at least one fall from this even if Aziraphale rose up from it and flattened him right after.

The strength he had loaned from Hell would ensure that Aziraphale got knocked back at least once. He doubted he would hurt Aziraphale at all, but it would be a blow to his pride and to Heaven's, and that would play well downstairs.

That was what Crowley thought when he hissed a dozen nasty threats into his horse's ear and mounted up for the joust at dusk. His heart was safely locked in ice, and he was ready to do some damage.

Their names were called, and he felt that snapped harp string sensation of an angel on the field. He knew that Aziraphale could feel something similar that told him a demon was close by. Aziraphale had said once it was something more like a scent rather than a sensation. Of what, Crowley had asked, and for some reason, the angel had gone all stammering and strange, refusing to say.

Didn't matter.

The sky finally decided to open up, and a light rain pattered down on the field. In years to come, they would separate the joust into two lanes to prevent the horses from fouling each other, but now it was only separated from a real sortie by the veneer of a few rules.

The herald shouted them to the center of the field to pay their reverence to the royalty and to the crowd, and even from where he was, Crowley could hear the crowd's interest shift to a high buzz. They knew that Aziraphale payed court to Clare du Bellay's sister. They knew that Aziraphale had been behaving strangely today. They knew that Clare du Bellay loved his sister very much, and they had no idea how this was all going to end.

_It's going to end with a principality flat on his arse, is where it's going to end, _Crowley thought.

At the herald's cry, they lifted their lances in salute, first to the ladies in the royal box, and then to the damp crowd.

Finally they turned to pay reverence to each other, and Crowley lifted his lance only to nearly drop it as Aziraphale dismounted.

Crowley stared as Aziraphale snapped his own lance in half -_humans really aren't that strong, but he can probably get away with it, _Crowley's brain chattered nervously- and then laid the pieces on the ground at in front of Crowley's horse, as respectfully as though they were holy relics. The horse snorted, probably getting ready to throw Crowley right off, but Aziraphale said a few quiet words and it calmed down. There was nothing of the contempt he had shown earlier in the sword duels.

“What the hell?”

Aziraphale nodded at him.

“Your sister has given me a command. I take it that I have been remiss in my obedience to that command, and you are here to show me the error of my ways.”

Crowley saw, or thought he saw, the hint of amusement in the angel's modestly downcast eyes, and he bared his teeth. If Aziraphale still thought he was playing the game, he had damned well better be prepared to play it to the end.

“I claim as my forfeit the twenty acres of land you won at Tours,” he said.

“Done.”

“I'm not,” Crowley said with a hard smile. “I want the gold from Cahors and from Aurilac as well, though you may keep the baby rhinoceros.”

“Kind of you,” Aziraphale said, and now he was looking up at Crowley with a wary expression on his face.

“Not really. I want your horse.”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes at that, and he handed the reins of his mount off to a cautious squire who ventured forward to take it. The crowd was murmuring loudly now. Forfeits were usually arranged off the field and in private. It helped people save face when their entire fortunes were taken from them over a bit of sport and they couldn't keep from crying.

“Well?” asked Aziraphale. “Are we done?”

“No. Your armor too.”

Aziraphale finally looked up to meet his eyes squarely, and it was all Crowley could do to stare with the haughtiness that Clare du Bellay would surely have. There was something burning at the core of Aziraphale just then, something that recalled to Crowley great clouds of dust spun until their heat formed stars.

For a moment, he thought that Aziraphale would snap, tell him no, but instead, the angel lowered his gaze humbly.

“You'll have to help me.”

Crowley dismounted and approached Aziraphale. There were perhaps five hundred people all told watching them. They might as well have been alone.

Aziraphale set his shield down on the wet grass, and he took off the leather guards for his wrists and and his legs himself. Crowley noted how worn they were; they had seen some use, probably when Aziraphale was in Iberia some twenty years ago. They belonged to Crowley now, as did the mail coif and the silk tabard.

Crowley undid the leather fasteners at the shoulders of Aziraphale's hauberk, his fingers slipping a little in the rainwater. Then Aziraphale could lift it over his head himself, handing it over as if it weighed nothing. Crowley dropped it and the quilted gambeson that followed into a wet pile with Aziraphale's broken lance. His heart beat like a drum, and he felt as if he might do anything, say anything like this.

Aziraphale stood in front of him, the rain soaking his thin linen shirt and darkening his pale hair. It had probably been centuries since he was this bare in public. With no horse, no armor and his lance shattered on the ground, he didn't look like a knight at all. He looked vulnerable, eyes wide and mouth soft, a red blush on his cheeks. He was beautiful.

_More, _whispered the soft voice in Crowley's head that sounded like Chréstienne. _More. You could have more, if you are only brave enough to take it._

“Kneel,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, and without hesitation, Aziraphale dropped to his knees, straight into the field that had been churned to mud, eyes never leaving Crowley's.

He reached for Aziraphale, because if the angel would kneel, he would let Crowley run his fingers through his hair, he would let Crowley pull, he would let Crowley-

Crowley jerked back. Hell was watching, and that meant that Heaven would be informed and that meant-

He turned on his heel, barely avoiding a speculative bite from his horse and mounted again. He gestured for someone from the sidelines to take his new-gotten gains, and he rode straight off the field, not looking back.

-

That night, a commendation from Hell stuffed into his things at the castle, Crowley put Chréstienne back on, made her requisite appearance at the feast, and then sneaked into town through the rain to find Aziraphale at the same inn he had been at before. This time, he was in the sheltered rear yard, fencing with the beautiful young man, but when he saw Crowley, he turned to her with a slight smile.

“Inside?”

“Please.”

Once they were alone in one of the inn's neat little rooms, all of the things that Crowley had intended to say abandoned her, and she was left twisting her hands nervously.

“Angel...”

“I'm sorry.”

“You what?”

“I am dreadfully sorry. I acted like a horrible brat. Honestly, I might as well have been throwing a _tantrum_, and then...”

He took a deep breath, seemingly unaware of the way Crowley was staring at him.

“And you came out, and I realized how terrible I was being. That isn't how a knight responds to his beloved's command. It was... it was unworthy of me and what I feel for you. I was only thinking of my own... no, not even my own pride, my own _vanity, _and the fact that I placed it above your regard even for one moment-”

“It's stupid, it's all so stupid!” Crowley burst out. “It _is! _This isn't love! This is just... posturing and showing off and dares and will-she, won't he, and...”

“Well, yes?”

Crowley trailed to a stop, her chest tight and her eyes a little damp, because she had forgotten, hadn't she? This wasn't love. This wasn't even a performance of love. This was a bet, a bet she had proposed and a bet she had to live with.

“Crowley,” said Aziraphale, eyeing her with something like care. “Are you all right? You look... does this mean that we shouldn't...”

“I'm absolutely fine,” she said. “Just a little overwrought. I got a commendation from Hell for today.”

“I got one from Heaven.”

Crowley stared.

“What?”

“Yes. It's the damnedest- sorry- thing. They're not thrilled that you were involved but a knight stepping back from his own vanity to kneel in humility on a field of battle... well, it's apparently _inspiring. _I'm glad we can access the official tally sheets at the end of this little experiment. I can't keep these things straight for the life of me.”

Crowley felt dizzy. He was safe. So was she. Now all she had to live with was the memory of Aziraphale in nothing but shirt and trousers in the rain, giving it all up because she said so, and she would be fine.

Just fine.

“All right. Well, then, somehow we're both fine?”

“Looks that way.”

“Right. Then.. I suppose I should be heading back.”

She didn't move. Neither did he.

Something was tugging at the back of her mind, and then she had it. Fumbling a little, she drew the little gold and garnet bracelet out of her bag, presenting it to Aziraphale. Aziraphale's face went hard.

“No,” he said. “You're not making me take it back, not after-”

“Actually,” she said softly, “I would like to wear it. Would you please put it on me?”

After a moment, Aziraphale took it from her and clasped it around her wrist. His touch was light, but did she imagine that his fingertips brushed over her wrist a moment longer than they necessarily had to? Her skin tingled.

“Good night, Aziraphale,” Crowley said quietly, and then she was gone into the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -As promised, the Bordeaux chapter! Hope it lives up to the promises made in A History of Unpleasantness. Seriously, this writing serially is for the birds.
> 
> -Crowley telling Aziraphale to lose is definitely from _A Knight's Tale_, which I'm pretty sure got the conceit from _The Knight of the Cart_, which actually is kind of in period for this fic. At least I didn't put Aziraphale into a prison cart to be hauled around like a criminal?
> 
> -Okay. So in my head, Aziraphale likes to play games, but he does not like to lose. He hates it. This comes from Neil Gaiman being asked why he has open hours at the shop at all when he'd be better just keeping it closed, and the answer was something like “well, it wouldn't be very sporting, would it?” That stuck with me. There's a game, but he gets to set the rules, and he likes to win.
> 
> -Years ago, I read Mario Puzo's _The Godfather_, which is utterly ridiculous, but one thing I remember was a definition of love which was “love is being able to make someone act against their nature.” Of course that's actively dangerous bullshit, but it stuck me, and I think we're seeing an echo of that sentiment here.
> 
> -This is where I'm starting to play fast and loose with history. Rolls of arms are later, there's no such thing as Gascony rules for duels, and Aziraphale really needs support staff in the form of squires and grooms to be doing the amount of competitions he's doing here.


	4. Chapter 4

The first thing that Crowley did with her prize money from the Bordeaux tourney was to buy Aziraphale a new set of armor, because Aziraphale could hardly fight for her favor without it, could he? She was generous and included a new sword and shield as well as a horse, something that looked a little less like a scarecrow on legs. And because she was in a spendthrift mood, she threw in some new clothes as well. It was the twelfth century for the love of Satan; the angel could wear something that showed off a bit of calf without sending the field into a scandalized tizzy.

“Really, my dear,” drawled Eleanor, “you are going to turn his head if you keep _that_ up. Fighting men are so easily spoiled by things like a new sword or a little encouragement.”

“I might not mind if he's a little spoiled,” Crowley mused. “He looks better in burgundy and black that he does in that tattered monk's gear he used to wear, doesn't he?”

“Whatever did you do with all of it?” asked Marie, and Crowley scoffed.

“What, did you think I kept it for sentimental purposes? I had it sold for scrap and used the proceeds to buy Beatrice that pony.”

“How is that working out?” asked Eleanor.

“Well, it gives her something to hug besides me anyway.”

Crowley told herself that giving young ladies ponies was a very good way to provide them with independent transport. They might travel anywhere they liked and get into all kinds of mischief. Chalk up another victory for Hell, and in the meantime, the pony was a much more appropriate object for Beatrice's sudden and rather soggy hugs than Crowley herself.

“Poor girl,” said Eleanor, shaking her head. “Her blasted husband is no more eager to see her than a pig is for the Christmas table.”

Before Marie or Crowley could respond, Mathilde came in, far too cheerful and carrying a familiar blue cloak over her arms.

“That's Beatrice's,” Marie said with a frown. “Oh Mathilde, you didn't really let her wander out into the hills to die of exposure, did you?”

“Bite your tongue, my princess,” said Mathilde, a merry light in her eyes. “This is only so that if anyone asks, Beatrice came back in with me, and here is her cloak, though we have no idea where she herself is right this moment, do we?”

“No, not at all,” said Crowley, intrigued in spite of herself. “What's up?”

“More like what finally found his spine,” snorted Mathilde. “A knight came upon us while we were picking flowers on the edge of the field by the west wall, and gallant as you please, drops down in front of Beatrice to kiss the hem of her skirt.”

“Sexy,” Crowley said, unable to keep herself from thinking of Aziraphale doing the same.

“Very! And then he pleaded with her for her understanding at his error, that long he has cherished her in his heart and that until now, he has not had the courage to approach her. And I'm staring at him because I had never seen him before, but Beatrice gets this... weird thrilled look on her face, and raises him up to tell him she's dreamed of him-”

“Ah, that girl, she throws it away too freely,” Eleanor said with a frown. “Men do not understand the worth of things if you only hand them over.”

“Well... maybe some would,” Crowley said, thinking of the last five thousand years, and Marie laughed, nudging her in the ribs.

“But not your angel?”

This was getting confusing, and she should never have allowed them to start calling Aziraphale her angel.

“But _anyway,” _Mathilde continued, “when I left they were staring into each other's eyes and picking flowers to braid in each other's hair. I know where _that _leads, so I decided to take myself off and give them some privacy. But I think, ladies, that we've seen the last of any weeping over Lord Cortland.”

Beatrice no longer cried over Lord Cortland, but she still ended up in Crowley's room and Crowley's bed a few times, hiding her face in Crowley's shoulder as if she could hide from the world.

“I don't think it's enough,” she whispered. “It should be enough, the way we meet, the letters he sends me, his secret devotion... but it isn't.”

Crowley stroked Beatrice's flaxen hair, biting her lip.

“But... maybe it will be with time?” she asked hopefully. “I mean, you're both pretty new at this. Maybe... maybe the songs and the letters will grow to be enough...”

Beatrice shook her head, her face a mask of misery.

“I think about him all the time,” she whispered. “I never stop wanting him. I never stop needing him. What am I to do with that?”

Crowley didn't know.

-

The tournament season was beginning to wind down from the heat of summer when Crowley received a message from Hell. It appeared one evening in the form of a rather charred little bat that flapped its way into her window and fell, tiny chest heaving, on her pillow. She frowned at the roll of paper clutched in its claws, and carried the bat, message and all, to her small table. She miracled up a few stunned flies and a saucer of honey water for the pathetic thing before gently prying the parchment away.

“Take five,” she told it, “you look about done in.”

It cheeped at her gratefully, but she was already reading the letter.

_The Demon Crowley is advised that on the 21__st__ of September, it is expected that he shall join the processional of the newly made Duke of Hell, Ligur of the Burning Reach. The processional shall consist of Ligur's honor guard in human raiment, beginning in Toulouse and ending in Carcassonne. Attendance is mandatory, and your absence _will_ be noted. Bring your own food, we're not feeding the lot of you. _

Crowley scowled, burning the message with a flash of fire. Honestly. Well done for Ligur, who had made some real waves recently with a few plagues and some very messy political murders, but Crowley had no interest in a processional, even if it was only a week long. Dreadfully dull and pompous things, and this meant that she was going to miss the tourney at Lourdes. Ugh. And she had been so set on seeing the angel in his new gear.

“Oh what a shame,” Marie said when Crowley brought up her absence. “Will your little sister be all right? I've never even heard of lizard coughs.”

“Oh, very serious,” Crowley said vaguely. “I had a case myself when I was small. We're just very close, and she'll rest more quietly if I come to... nurse her and comfort her.”

“Oh of course!” said Beatrice, who quickly hid the love note she was penning under a stack of explicit novels. “The poor sweet little mite. Of course she will rest more comfortably if you are with her.”

“And what shall we tell Sir Aziraphale?” asked Mathilde, who had a pointed lack of interest in anyone under the age of twenty. “He's meant to be fighting for you at Lourdes, isn't he?”

“Let him fight,” Crowley said, covering up her disappointment at not getting to go. “He'll fight for me after Lourdes, anyway.”

For another handful of months, at least, and the idea that this would all be over in such a short while made a cold hand close around Crowley's heart. It had been... it had been _fun, _ and the fact that she was getting something already so limited curtailed put her in a foul mood.

The procession turned out to be the standard demon stuff, riding the country roads after dark, chasing drunks, and challenging human knights at the crossroads. It was dreadfully boring; he always forgot how very _boring_ demons could be when they were all in a group and trying to impress each other. He dutifully knocked a few heads, scared a few forsworn priests into the screaming mimis, and counted the days until the hellish contingent was back in Hell and he could enjoy- er, see to the rest of his bet with Aziraphale.

The first indication that things weren't going to go quite as smoothly as he thought they were was when word came that there was a tourney at Carcassonne.

“Tourney,” Ligur mused. “Those are those things you've been banging on about, aren't they?”

“Yeah,” said Crowley shifting slightly in his seat to avoid the spray of blood from some younger demons at play. “You know. Fake war. Feats of strength and might. Petty and dull if you ask me.”

“Well,” said Ligur with a consideration Crowley was going to hear in his nightmares, “maybe we ought to step in and make it more interesting...”

Much later that night, Crowley lurked around the edges of the encampment listening for the sound of someone having rather too good a time in a bush. Then he reached in and pulled out a half-naked demon, setting him briskly on his feet.

“Hey-!”

“Got a job for you,” Crowley said. “You prick up your ears and listen, yeah?”

The demon, shaped like a youth with black, black eyes, gave him a mutinous look and a reluctant nod, and that would probably have to be good enough. Crowley held up a book, no bigger than his palm, one of the more pornographic works coming out of Venice that year.

“All right. You need to see that this gets to Mathilde Rouvroy. She's a lady of the queen's court, chestnut hair, tall and chubby, can't miss her. You get this to her before dawn, and I'll put in a good word for you with Belphagor. That's who you've been eyeing up this whole trip, right?”

“A _really_ good word,” the demon insisted, and Crowley nodded, because it certainly didn't matter to him if Belphagor got laid or assassinated.

The demon took the book, and with a twist that made Crowley's own spine hurt, transformed into a black and scarred hare. His paws barely touched the ground before he was off like a flash, and that, Crowley realized grimly, was all he could do. No amount of bribery would keep a message to an angel a secret, but a message tucked into a present for Mathilde, begging her to make sure that Aziraphale wasn't at Carcassonne., that might pass.

By the time the procession rolled into Carcassonne., Crowley was a shivering wreck inside a suit of armor, and that was before he was called on to get everyone entered into the lists. He couldn't explain the joust or the sword duels well enough to prevent some real horror, and so in despair, he entered them all into the melee set for that evening.

_One big stupidity and then this is all done, _he thought. _Everyone goes home, and-_

“Excuse us, but are you Clare du Bellay?”

“Who's asking?” he asked, and before he could turn around, there was a feeling like someone had plucked a sour note on his brain stem.

_Angel, _he thought in confused panic, hand dropping down to his sword, but the two who stood behind him dressed in monks' robes looked like absolutely nothing that needed to be taken care of with lethal intent.

One looked to be barely out of their teens, peering up at him with a stern demeanor, and the other, dark-haired and stockier, was completely absorbed in their game of cat's cradle, gazing at it with the kind of concentration that helped humans figure out triangles.

“Hey,” he said awkwardly. “Yeah, that's me.”

“We bring you a message from the principality-”

“He's undercover, they think he's a human,” interrupted the one still staring at the cat's cradle.

“Oh, yes. Human Clare, we bring you a message from the human Aziraphale.”

_Oh, it's been rather a minute and a half since Heaven deigned to come to Earth, hasn't it?_

“Sure. Go on, what is it?”

“Human Aziraphale says that the weather is going to be foul for Michaelmas, and that it would all be for the best if you were to stay at home out of it.”

“That's it?”  
“Yes, it is the Message,” said the angel, pronouncing the capital.

“Holy, holy, holy,” added the other one, still not looking up from their string.

_Michaelmas- _ Crowley's mind flashed to the date, and his stomach fell like he had. _Oh, no..._

He started to ask if there was a way to get a message back to the angel, but the two were already walking away, the one trying to impress the other with their cat's cradle, and Crowley's head pounded with stress and fear. He went back to the lists to see what declarations had been made, and most of his worst fears were confirmed.

There was a Lord Michel Angelos in the melee, because the Archangel Michael had never been one for subtlety, as well as a few other names that made Crowley wonder but didn't panic him the same way. Thank Satan that it didn't look as if Gabriel or Uriel had made the trip down, because then they really would have had a disaster, and likely a premature apocalypse as well.

He winced when he found Aziraphale's name in the lists, but at this point, the bad news was so bad he wasn't even surprised. Of course Aziraphale was going to be in the melee. Of course they were going to have their own Baby Armageddon right there in Carcassonne. Of fucking course.

The tournament was one of the larger ones of the year, one of the last as well. With knights and lords from all over the continent and some from overseas as well, it was such a tumult of activity and human endeavor that the Hellish contingent didn't twig to the Heavenly host until the trumpet was blown to assemble the melee.

“You're joking,” Ligur said flatly, gazing over the rutted field to where the opposing side rallied.

Michael was clad in shining white armor on a dappled gray, and the device on her shield was a spear skewering a dragon. She gleamed like any storybook knight, but every demon there knew that her lance and her sword were realer than real.

“Well, er, it _is _her birthday, after all,” Crowley mumbled from his own mount, and Ligur laughed.

“Yeah? Well, let's go give old fuck-wings a real birthday present then, eh?”

The news of the angelic presence traveled up and down the line, and across the field. Crowley could see the realization hit the angels as well. The Heavenly knights shifted, something changed in the air, and what had been a little sham war became something much nastier.

_Well, at least I don't see Aziraphale yet, he must have- no. No, there he is, Satan blast it._

He rode close to Michael, and Crowley's vision dropped into that other place where they were actually what they were, a swarm of rings and eyes next to the shining thing from which descended all weapons of war. Abruptly, next to all that, Crowley noted that Aziraphale was wearing his new armor.

_He wears it well, _Crowley thought inanely, and then he realized to his horror that given his place in the ranks next to Ligur, given the packed riders behind him and the arrangement of the host, when the order was given to charge, he would be doing it straight towards Aziraphale.

_No, no, no, don't care how it looks, I am getting the almighty fuck out of here..._

He was trying to find a way to wheel his horse around, but then the trumpet sounded, and he was dragged along in the rush. There was no turning without riding straight into his own side, and in the confusion, he fumbled his lance. He didn't lose it entirely, but now he was wrestling it back into position while riding straight towards the damned Heavenly host.

_Oh, this is going to bloody hurt, _he had a chance to think, and then Aziraphale edged out in front of Michael, his horse eating up the ground between the lines. Less than twenty yards separated them now, and Aziraphale pulled out in front completely

Ten yards, and he cut in front of Michael, actually shouldering her lance aside.

Five yards, and the lines crashed, Aziraphale straight into Ligur, Michael shouting in offense behind him. It left Crowley with just enough time, barely enough time, to recover his own lance before having to fend off some overenthusiastic angel fuck on a shrieking bay.

Crowley slid neat as whisky off said fuck's lance, shouldering him off the horse as soon as he got close, and he turned back just in time to see Aziraphale actually get tossed straight up into the air by Ligur, parting ways with his horse and heading for the ground.

_Principality versus duke of Hell, no contest, _Crowley thought, even as he screamed his way through the fight. Aziraphale was barely a warm-up for Ligur, and now archangel and duke met at the center of the brawl with a deafening clash. The humans would see two knights of grand and legendary skill facing off on the Carcassonne. field because that was all their brains could handle. Crowley, made of different stuff, saw a gleaming sword ablaze with divine light and a thousand furious mouths whipping around each other, dealing wounds that dripped something like blood and something like corrosive stardust, and he made sure to stay clear.

Of course it wasn't like he was harmless, and he made his way across the field with lethal abandon. He wasn't made to fight, but he guessed he had been doing it a sight more often than some of the angels on the opposite side, who'd after all been in Heaven for ages.

_Not a lot of lances in Heaven, then? _Crowley thought savagely. _Not a lot of swords, not a lot of mud? Why don't you take a good bloody look? _

He knew he should have found Aziraphale by this point. He had circled Ligur and Michael's own private war almost entirely, he'd almost gotten his head knocked off by what he guessed was an enraged dominion, he'd neatly trampled a cherubim, and still no angel. Well, no angel he cared about, and his heart was beating half out of his chest.

_Don't tell me that Ligur discorporated him. I would have known, I would have _felt _it..._

His breath was coming too fast, and so were his thoughts, and the entire world was ranged against him. He had survived battles, even been modestly successful a time or two, but Crowley would be the first to say he lacked any kind of stamina for them.

He could feel the ground slipping out from underneath him. It was too loud, it was too _much_, and if he couldn't get out, he was suddenly very, very sure he was going to die.

When a principality on a big fuck-off roan mare rose up in front of him, wielding their lance like a club, Crowley turned just a little too slowly. He screamed on the first blow that numbed his entire arm and made him drop his lance entirely, and the second blow swept him clear of his horse, throwing him straight into the mud.

_Oh, hey, I was right, I am going to die here, _he thought with shocking calm as the principality drew their sword from horseback.

Then they shrieked as a black horse Crowley recognized slammed into theirs, chest to chest, both horses screaming. They managed to keep their seat, just barely, but Aziraphale swung his sword in a shining arc. A human couldn't cut into plate armor, couldn't shear a body nearly in two, but he was never a human, and he jerked his sword loose from the fallen principality with barely restrained violence.

“Aziraphale!”

He turned to Crowley, and Crowley's breath stuttered at what he saw there, something ancient, something protective, something _possessive. _In that moment, there was no hiding for either of them. It was nothing but love. It had never been anything but love.

_He'll kneel for me, he'll kill for me, what else might he do? _Crowley thought wildly, and in that moment Aziraphale knew it too.

Aziraphale reached his hand down to Crowley as Crowley staggered to his feet. He was going to take it, to Hell with who looked and who marked, because that was over, wasn't it? There was no hiding this, there never could be again, and he was _glad..._

Three trumpet blasts rang over the field, and around them, the battle came to a halt. Aziraphale pulled back in surprise, but Crowley was already on his feet. They both looked around, Crowley a little impressed he had actually made the demons understand that they needed to stop when the battle was called.

It was a wreckage of course, with a lot of cleanup for whatever poor sod had to take care of this kind of thing, but then there was a commotion by the side of the field. Crowley straightened, shading his eyes against the sunset light to see what was up.

It was Eleanor astride her pale gray palfrey, her back straight, her blood-red dress fluttering in the evening breeze. She rode straight for Ligur and Michael, who had drawn back from each other. They both eyed the queen warily. She was human, nothing but human, but Crowley knew what the saw, a will stronger than most ever made, and Eleanor smiled at them.

“Enough,” she said, her clarion voice sounding to every inch of the field. “I would not have two such fine knights destroy each other at tourney when they might both dine by my side instead.”

She offered each of them a hand. Michael took it first, bowing her head and kissing it, and Ligur was only a moment slower, doing the same.

“Stand me an escort, my lords,” she said when they had given her her due. “I would have you both attend me tonight.”

Somewhat dazed, Ligur and Michael trailed her off the field, and the battle turned into just a field of groaning men needing bandages and anesthetic, the way they always did.

Aziraphale got swept away in the rush, and Crowley hurried off to help the demons get home and to take up his place as Chréstienne again. There was so much to do, and he wanted it done so he could go find his angel.

Through it all, the words echoed in his head.

_No more hiding. This is us. He loves me. He loves me, and I love him, and we can't hide any longer..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -A year late, several dollars short, but I made it back! I have missed this story so much, and I have missed all of you, whoever is still reading at the start of 2021!
> 
> -I am so pleased I get to add the Michael/Ligur/Eleanor of Aquitaine tag to things. That particular threesome did not go anywhere smart, but I imagine it was incredible while it lasted.
> 
> -If you wondered if you saw any familiar faces, you're right. That is, I did not make Medoc, Thoriel and Sireniel only to use nameless NPCs when I need some dialogue. 
> 
> -Thoriel played some really good cat's cradle straight through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Thoriel and Sireniel do not get down to Earth very much at all. if cup and ball had been around during the 1100s, I would have given them one of those, but it showed up oddly late. 
> 
> -Okay, we're almost to the end. We have two short chapters left or one long one, I'm not sure which yet. Poor Crowley. You all remember from A History of Unpleasantness that he ends this one crying, right? It'll be all right, really, though not for a while.


End file.
